Medical devices, including cardiac stimulus devices such as implantable cardiac pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), are surgically implanted within a patient. Cardiac stimulus devices have one or more electrical leads with one or more electrodes that conduct signals to and receive signals from the patient's heart. As such, cardiac stimulus devices provide electrical therapy to the patient. A programming device or programmer is able to communicate with the medical device through a communication link. The communication link provides means for commands and data to be transmitted and received between the programmer and the device.
Longevity is an important aspect regarding the performance of the medical device, and it is determined primarily by the capacity of the battery and the current drain of the electronics; i.e. battery status. The current drain depends on a number of variables, including the impedance(s) of the pacing lead(s), the ratio of sensed beats to paced beats, the background current of the device's electronics, and the characteristics of the pacing pulse(s) such as pacing rate, pacing mode, amplitude and width. Approximations for current drain and/or charge depletion for the medical device are obtained by estimating these variables. However, estimating these variables is difficult because they vary over the lifetime of the device. Tradeoffs that sacrifice the longevity of the medical device for the safety of the patient may be required to maintain an appropriate safety margin that accounts for the granularity and uncertainty in estimating these variables.
Latent electrical faults within the implanted device may cause elevated current drains. These electrical faults can go undetected early on in the life of an implanted device without a means for measuring and reporting the current of the implanted device. A problem with reporting current measurements for an implanted device is that the communication system, such as a telemetry circuit, draws considerably more current during a communication session than in a quiescent period. This extra current drawn by the telemetry circuit can adversely affect the current measurements.
Therefore, there is a need in the art to provide a system and method for measuring the current drain or charge depletion for implantable medical devices, and to provide applications for determining the battery status, detecting electrical faults, and reporting the battery current.